He tendered the apology during his address at the valedictory court session held at the Supreme Court in Abuja in honour of Justice John Fabiyi, who attained the mandatory retirement age of 70 on Wednesday.
“We apologise on behalf of our colleagues who have been criticising this court in the media. We have written letters to the lawyers concerned to say it is unacceptable.”But senior lawyers have fired back at the NBA President.
Some prominent Senior Advocates of Nigeria, including Prof. Itse Sagay, Chief Adegboyega Awomolo and Femi Falana, as well as Lagos-based lawyer, Jiti Ogunye, had led the debate on the ruling of the Supreme Court granting an order of stay of proceedings of Saraki’s trial before the CCT, describing the apex court’s ruling as illegal.
They faulted the ruling of the Supreme Court panel, which was led by the same retiring Justice Fabiyi, on the grounds that it contravened the provisions of sections 306 and 396 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015, which abolished granting stay of proceedings in criminal matters.
In their reaction to the apology tendered on their behalf by the NBA president, Sagay, Falana and Ogunye, said the apology was not for them as they had done nothing wrong to the Supreme Court.
Sagay said, “I have not got any letter from him. I don’t know what he himself has done. Definitely, I have not done anything for which to apologise. Again, I don’t want to be unfair to him, since you are reporting it.
“If he actually said he apologised on my behalf, I’m saying that may be he is making a mistake, he is apologising on behalf of himself. I have done nothing for him to apologise on my behalf.”
Falana expressed surprise at the apology tendered on their behalf by Alegeh, saying it was baseless.
He said, “I am flabbergasted to learn that the President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Mr. Austin Alegeh, SAN, has apologised on behalf of those of us who have had cause to criticise the ruling of the Supreme Court on stay of proceedings. There was no basis whatsoever for the apology. I never offended the Supreme Court or any of its individual members for whom I have my profound respect.
“Instead of bellyaching over this matter, Mr. Aleghe ought to have tendered the apology on behalf of his friends who recently walked out of the Code of Conduct Tribunal after they had openly accused its members of engaging in “judicial rascality” for rightly dismissing the illegal application for the indefinite suspension of the trial of the defendant in the case of FRN v Dr. Bukola Saraki. Even though he is not a member of the Disciplinary Committee of the legal profession, Mr. Aleghe gave them a clean bill of health.
“Mr. Alegeh has never written any letter to me, either as the President of the NBA or in his personal capacity. If he eventually does I shall let him realise that in criticising the revered members of the Supreme Court I drew inspiration from the epochal words of Fabiyi J.C.A. (as he then was) in the case of Ekwenugo v. Federal Republic of Nigeria (2001) 6 NWLR (PT 708) 171 where his lordship observed inter alia:
“Nigerian judges do not operate in utopia. We operate in Nigeria. And no Nigerian judge can rightly claim he has not heard that Transparency International rates our nation-state as the most corrupt in the whole universe in the year 2000. This is ear-aching.”
In his own reaction, Ogunye described Mr. Alegeh’s apology as rather unfortunate.
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